By now it’s secret that today marks President Obama’s 100th day in office, so it’s only fitting that the most technologically progressive and transparent White House to date would have a web series keeping us up to snuff on the honeymoon. Newsweek jumped all over this idea with its lighthearted reality web series The District, which premiered back in January just days after the President was sworn in.
Sure, it’s a bit of a spoof of the MTV semi-reality series The City, which is essentially just an East Coast (NYC) version of The Hills. Newsweek wanted to bring that glitzy, breezily narrated format with Barack Obama as the lead character, asking “what if MTV made a reality series about Obama’s first 100 days?”
Subscribe for daily Tubefilter Top Stories
One drawback however is that the series didn’t make it to the 100 days, choosing instead to end its nine episode run on March 30th. That said, it’s worth a watch. The producers even used The City’s theme song—The Pussycat Dolls’ “On Top of the World”— for the series’ opening. Episode 5 even has Barack taking a nod from Hills star Brody Jenner and his embrace of the ‘bromance.’
It’s a clever show, spoofing the latest drama-loving MTV reality style while still being surprisingly informative. Real footage fast cut with a catchy pop score and a narrative sporting an Obama impression better than anything SNL has mustered up.
Sadly, that’s all she wrote on this series, so for more hours of White House voyeurism try Obama’s Creative Commons-licensed Flickr stream, official Barack Obama Twitter account, and the revamped White House web site. Further showing the new administration’s embrace of the web, tonight you can catch the live stream of the President’s 100th day press conference live on YouTube tonight at 5PM PT.
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza.
